2011-01 · NASA ASRS report 930337
MD83 Captain reports his ears popping at FL240 and discovers both packs have tripped off. Packs will not reset and an emergency descent is initiated. Once level at 8;000 FT the packs are successfully reset and a normal landing ensues.
While level at FL240 on the arrival; I noticed my ears popping. I looked up and discovered that both packs were tripped off; the cabin was climbing at 1;500 FPM; and the outflow valve was fully closed. I attempted to reset each pack with no luck. I declared an emergency with Center telling them that I had lost control of the cabin and needed an immediate descent. They attempted to give us an altitude in the mid teens; and when I told them to give us a turn off of course; and clearance to 8;000 FT they finally give us the direct descent we needed. The cabin reached 10;000 FT in its climb just as the aircraft passed 10;000 FT on its descent to 8;000 FT; so we never exceeded 10;000 FT in the cabin. We were finally able to regain both packs after being level at 8;000 MSL for several minutes. Once we had both packs back online; with the cabin level at 8;000 FT; we then had to delay our descent for landing until the pressurization could catch back up with the normal descent schedule. A long downwind leg with a fifteen mile final allowed us to make a normal approach and landing.
Lost packs and pressure. Declared emergency and descended to 10;000 then landed.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.